Mission: Drumstick Wanna-Be's

Last week I set out to create a homemade version of the Drumstick Ice Cream cone.






I started with sugar cones and used egg cartons to support them.

Next I needed to melt some chocolate to coat the inside of the cones. So I set up a double boiler with a pan of water with a pyrex bowl on top.

With the first attempt at melting the chocolate I used semisweet chips and a few Tbsp. of butter. I cranked up the heat on the stove because I was impatient. The water below the chips started to boil.

Here's what happens when you overheat chocolate. Lumpy, grainy, thick chocolate.

Fast forward until later that afternoon when Jon could bring home more chocolate chips.

This time I used milk chocolate chips (a whole bag) and 1 Tbsp. of canola oil. (Not sure why the switches... just wanted to try it)

This time I kept the water below a boil... just barely a simmer. I stirred the chocolate a lot and as soon as 2/3rds of the chips were melted, I took the bowl off the water and let it continue to melt off the heat. Nice smooth chocolate.

I used a pastry brush to coat the insides of the cones. I made sure to smoosh some chocolate to the bottom of the cones to create that hunk of chocolate at the bottom of Drumsticks.

Here's me lining cones at about 8:00 at night. We had to wait until the kids went to bed for obvious chocolate high reasons.

I put the cones in the freezer for the chocolate to harden while I let the ice cream start to soften on the counter.

I started to fill the cones with the softest ice cream since that would smoosh down in the cones easier. I only filled them to the top then put them in the freezer so that layer would harden before adding more firm ice cream on top.

Then I started the most time consuming part of the whole thing.... putting the ice cream on top of the cones. I had to take one at a time out of the freezer to work on since they were fast to melt. It was approaching 9pm at this point and I don't work well after 8 or 9pm. I'm a morning person... my brain ceases to function after a certain point. I was really ready to throw in the towel and quit but I kept on stacking ice cream.

We ran out of vanilla after only a few tops so luckily I had some chocolate ice cream to do the rest. So most of them had a chocolate top but all had vanilla inside the cone. Here they had to wait in the freezer for the ice cream to harden back up.

Next came the chocolate on the tops...

On my first attempt, I thought I could just spread the chocolate on... Wrong! As soon as the slightly warm chocolate touched the ice cream it caused the chocolate to harden and the ice cream to melt slightly... resulting in the chocolate falling off into the bowl.

Since it was 9:30 at this point and I was getting cranky, I decided to just drizzle the chocolate on top and sprinkle the peanuts I had crushed earlier on top. This was the easiest part of the whole process.

Here they are lined up in the freezer waiting for the everything to firm up enough to be wrapped in plastic wrap.

The Verdict:

*Did I save any money... Nope. I figure I spent about as much on ingredients as I would have spent this week buying them since they were on sale at Walmart for $4.50 for 8 cones.

*I spent 3 hours making these cones because of all the freezer wait time.

Was it worth it?? Absolutely!!!! After I tasted one I realized it was worth all the time and effort. They were so much better then the store bought ones. Jon said he'll never eat a store bought one again. (now if someone handed him one, I'm sure he'd eat it) I think most of it had to do with the quality of the ice cream. I used all natural ice cream and it was so much better then whatever they use in Drumsticks. I also loved the chocolate and peanuts on the top.

If I had to make them again (which I don't plan on doing anytime soon) I'd put more chocolate in the cones. I couldn't taste much chocolate once I was down to the cone.

So, if you have hours on your hands with nothing to do... try these Drumstick Wanna-be's. Just wait until the kids are in bed so you don't have to share! :)